The Daily - Arizona’s Pipe Dream

Episode Date: September 1, 2023

A Times investigation revealed that in much of the United States, communities and farms are pumping out groundwater at alarming rates. Aquifers are shrinking nationwide, threatening supplies of drinking water and the country’s status as a food superpower.Christopher Flavelle, who covers climate adaptation for The Times, went to Arizona, the state at the forefront of the crisis, and looked at one especially controversial idea to address it: desalination.Guest: Christopher Flavelle covers climate adaptation for The New York Times.Background reading: America is using up its groundwater like there’s no tomorrow.Five takeaways from the investigation into the groundwater crisis.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

It's just past 7 a.m. in Phoenix. I'm standing at the top of Camelback Mountain. It's the highest point in the area, and I can see for miles in every direction. And what you see for miles in every direction is green. There is an unbelievable lushness to this place, not just in terms of green lawns and golf courses, but even the tree canopy. And if you drive an hour in any direction, the contrast couldn't be more clear.

You hit almost totally barren desert. And so the first impression and the overwhelming impression that you get from looking down on Phoenix from above is it's a miracle. get from looking down on Phoenix from above is it's a miracle. Somehow humans have managed to build a garden in the desert and a garden whose scale is impossible to capture. From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi and this is The Daily. From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. A comprehensive Times investigation reveals that in much of the United States, Americans are pumping out groundwater at alarming rates, and that this essential source of water for much of the country has reached a critical point. Today, my colleague Christopher Flavell goes to the state at the forefront of this crisis and looks at one especially controversial idea to address it. It's Friday, September 1st.

So Chris, tell me about this groundwater crisis that you and our colleagues spent months reporting on. So, almost every part of the U.S. relies on groundwater for drinking, for farming, for basically fueling modern society. And that water has built up deep underground over thousands, in many cases, over millions of years in aquifers. And it's pumped up through wells. But what's important is that water isn't just replaced by rain. Even hurricanes like the one in Florida this week won't be enough to replenish them once that water is pumped out. In many cases, it's effectively gone. So what we did is something that no one else has done, really. We built a comprehensive database using data we could find all around the country, trying to get the best picture possible to see what the health of American aquifers is.

How much water are we using? How much is left? What are the consequences? And what we found is that in much of the country, almost everywhere in the country, there's a problem with pumping out groundwater too fast at a rate that means in many places we're at risk of running out. And if that happened, it would fundamentally change those places. And not just in the West, but across the U.S., places like Maryland and Kansas and Arkansas and New York and Minnesota, places you don't think of as having water problems that are actually quite at risk.

Wow. And there's one state that maybe is in the most dire position around groundwater and also is sort of at the forefront of trying to figure out how to respond to it, and that's Arizona. Arizona is limiting new construction around Phoenix as the state's water supply continues to dwindle. State officials say there isn't enough groundwater for housing construction that has already been approved. This is now a reality check. This is people in Arizona finally saying, you know what? You can't live without water and we're running out of our water. Exhibit A in that crisis is the recent decision at the beginning of June when the governor Katie Hobbs announced.

Today I'm directing the Arizona Department of Water Resources to publish the Phoenix active management area groundwater model. That the amount of groundwater underneath Maricopa County isn't enough to support all the homes that have already been approved for construction. If we do nothing,

we could face a 4% shortfall in groundwater supplies over the next 100 years. And they said any developers that want approval to build new subdivisions have to find some other source of water aside from groundwater. That's why, as required by law, we will pause approvals of new Assured Water Supply Determinations

that rely on pumping groundwater. Which is just a real jolt to a system built on rapid and really endless growth. And it could mean a deep shift in the way people live and work in Arizona. like what exactly do you mean like not having enough water to actually drink and bathe yeah having enough water to prepare your food to bathe to wash your clothes to water your lawn you know if you spend time in arizona it's a real land of bounty, right? People aren't living lives where they have to ration anything. But this would begin to shift Arizona into a place where there just isn't enough of this fundamental component of life. I mean, it sounds like the beginning of the end for growth in Arizona. Yeah. And if you think about what Arizona is, this is a real shift. Growth is an underpinning of Arizona's economy and identity. And the state's been able to attract people from all over the country with the promise really of bounty in the desert. And that could

begin to change. But if you go to Phoenix and the expanding suburbs around Phoenix, people don't seem especially worried about it. They still seem pretty bullish about the future. Give me your sense. How do you describe Buckeye to people who don't live there? You don't have to shovel sunshine, ever. And so take, for example, a fast growing town city, really just west of downtown Phoenix called Buckeye. It's not unlike a place you can see anywhere in the country. There's strip malls and houses.

You wouldn't know you were in a desert to drive through Buckeye. Buckeye grew up very fast in the past 20 years from like 8,000 people to over 100,000 people right now. I spoke to the head of Buckeye's water department, Terry Lowe, and other city officials. They've already been told at the start of this year that there isn't enough groundwater beneath Buckeye to support new development. That's not a secret at this point, but it doesn't seem to be having any drag on sort of optimism in the town.

And if you want to go see the ocean, it's only about four or five hours away. And if you want to go skiing, you can go. And if you get, you can ski, you can be in the desert in one minute and skiing in the next and be back in the same day. Right. And the result is they're still talking about how to grow if you haven't lived here you haven't done a little bit of research you would think that water is is not available and is and is a challenge and we're

going to run out or that type of thing we're not in any way shape or form close to any of that so their debate is not whether to grow or whether they can maintain their quality of life. It's where to find the water to support that growth. Okay, so Arizona's in this water crisis. Much of the state has been told they can't grow anymore. And yet these people in these suburbs are still talking about growth. How do they reconcile that? Well, remember, they've been told there's not enough groundwater, but they haven't been told they can't grow.

The state has said the groundwater it has now in many key areas can't support more growth. But if they can find new sources of water, there's nothing stopping them from growing. And what I found from talking to people in the Phoenix area is they think they can do that. They feel like this is a problem that they can solve. But I mean, how do you find more water? Well, that's the question. And knowing that communities all over Arizona will need more water. Last year, Arizona, realizing the trouble it was facing, set up a new program where they set aside money, a lot of money, a billion dollars, and hired new staff to try to answer that question, where to find the water.

And the term of art is water augmentation. And there's one idea they're looking at. It's desalination. Desalination. Okay. Desalination sounds like you take salt out of ocean water. Very good. So obviously the problem here is not that there's not enough water in the world. Oceans cover, what, two-thirds of the Earth's surface. It's that there's not enough water in the world. Oceans cover, what, two-thirds of the Earth's surface. It's that there's not enough fresh, drinkable water. So desalination is taking the resource that we have an abundance of and turning it into the thing that's scarce. And how they do that is you push that water through a membrane.

It's kind of a filter at really high pressure. And the filter strips out the salt. And you're left with perfectly drinkable water, which in theory, if it comes from the ocean, means you've got, if not an infinite supply, then certainly enough water to answer the challenges in Arizona. How much of an established thing is this, this desalination? So this is actually widely used. There are several desalination plants in the U.S. already, many of them in California and Texas. In the Middle East, Persian Gulf countries.

In Israel, it's widely used. This is not a new technology. I think what's changing is as climate change makes more and more places water scarce, more people are saying, wait, can that be our solution as well? desalination operators in the world. And IDE actually went to Arizona to speak to the committee tasked with finding more water. Their acronym is WIFA, late last year. And formally pitched this idea of providing desalinated water to Arizona. Famous for its beautiful, diverse landscapes and nature, such as the Grand Canyon, and its vast and ancient history.

The state of Arizona is a shining star on the U.S. border with Mexico. Okay, but how would this actually work? I mean, you need ocean water, right? And Arizona is, of course, not on the ocean. That's the catch. Arizona is not, in, not on the ocean. That's the catch. Arizona is not, in fact, on the ocean. The Arizona Water Project Solution Team as a private sector critical infrastructure solution.

So what IDE proposed in this video presentation they made for WIFA... Will develop, design, build, finance... Is to build the desalination plants not in Arizona, the largest in the world to date, seawater desalination plant, but across the border in Mexico. The desalination plant will be located at Puerto Panasco, Sonora, Mexico, drawing seawater from the Sea of Cortez. And then build a pipeline that would run 200 miles, a lot of it uphill, to deliver that desalinated water from Mexico to Phoenix.

Ensuring the needs and growth of the state of Arizona, as well as the entire region forever. You may call it an infinite and unlimited reverse Colorado River. So this is wild. They're proposing a giant pipeline to bring ocean water off of Mexico all the way up to Arizona, like this huge river flowing backwards. Instead of water flowing hundreds of miles to the sea, this would be ocean water flowing hundreds of miles inland. When you put it like that, it does sound a bit crazy. And even proponents acknowledge this is a pretty initially outlandish-seeming idea. There are so many obstacles, geographic, political, economic, right, energy obstacles, so many things that make this seem like a pipe dream. But it's also a pipe dream that really could happen. So I wanted to understand what the obstacles would be. And the logical place

to start was Puerto Penasco, the city on the shore of the Gulf of California, sometimes called the Sea of Cortez, where this desalination plant would get built. It's a city of about 60,000 people. It's an hour south of the border between Arizona and Mexico. And from the ocean, it's beautiful. It's got luxury villas and high-rise condos on a really attractive beach. It's a tourism mecca for people from Arizona and from Mexico. It's a fishing economy. You can see people going out in boats. The interior of the city is quite different. There's significant poverty rates. A lot of the roads are unpaved. A lot of the buildings aren't painted. And so when I got there, what I wanted to understand was how

officials in Puerto Penasco viewed this idea to build a desal plant for Arizona. Hola. Hola. Hi, Chris. Hi. New York Times. Nice to meet you. So the idea is that IDE would acquire land in Puerto Penasco and as part of the deal, it would provide some desalinated water to Puerto Penasco and other nearby cities. Though it hasn't said how much water it would provide or how much it would charge or even whether it's a price that local residents could afford to pay. So IDE told Arizona lawmakers in December that their plan was to build the largest desal plant anywhere in the world here in Puerto Penasco, pipe the water to Arizona, and also provide some water to Puerto Penasco. Have you talked to them? We have no knowledge. And the thing to remember is Puerto Penasco and the area around it is also desert,

so drinking water is a real challenge there too. So I wanted to ask officials if they thought this would be a good thing. Because of course the plan can't go forward if Mexican officials reject it. If they called you, what would you say? Is it a good idea? We're always going to be open to this subject. And to my surprise, these local officials said they think desalination is actually a really important and probably necessary thing for Puerto Penasco because of their water shortages, but with some caveats. And the main one is cost. How much could you afford to pay?

That's a good question. you afford to pay? They stressed that there's only so much local residents can pay for this water. Puerto Penasco, again, is not a rich place. If the desal plant is four times as much, and this was five times or six times or ten times, could you afford it? No, no. No, it's too much. It's too high. But these officials were also worried about the environmental costs of doing this. So we have a big problem. Because the highest concentration of salt, it's going to provoke some damage. So again, desalination involves pushing salt water through a membrane, filtering out the salt,

and then taking that sort of slurry, that highly saline brine, and doing something with it. In some parts of the world, they'll inject it deep underground, where in theory it won't be a concern. But in this case, IDES said they would put that salty brine back into the Gulf of California. But just releasing the brine back into the water it's not a good idea. No right? No. No. So what do you think will happen? You've got this real problem what's the the answers are all difficult or expensive if we meet again five years from now what do you think we'll look back on and see that you did? In five years, we're going to have to be desalinating water. Little by little. That's just going to become more expensive to live in Puerto Penasco.

So their position seemed to be that whether it's this particular deal with IDE and Arizona or not, desalination is part of the future in Puerto Penasco, which means this issue of what to do with that waste brine is one they have to think about a solution for. Hi. So it's sort of a lovely spot, isn't it? Yeah. It's so pretty. Yeah. So I went to talk to a local environmentalist, a woman named Nelida Barajas Acosta, who helped lay it out for me. I mean, just from looking at it, it's an open area. They wouldn't have to tear down any buildings. They wouldn't have to throw anyone out of their homes. It's right by the water. It seems good, no? Well, think about this. Not because you are seeing an empty land, that means that it is empty. You know, they are biodiversity there.

And after we got to her office, I asked her to walk me through what the environmental impacts would be from this idea. And she was very clear they would not be good. So when IDE discusses this, they've been very clear that there will be no negative impact from the dry. Is that accurate? No. No. So by changing the density, you know, the salinity of the water in this area, this is like the air pollution.

Your flume, it is not only in the place you are releasing, but it will be dispersed in all around the Sea of Cortez. And the effects on fisheries will be dramatic. The point she's making is that it's not the salt itself. It's the concentration of the salt that poses a threat to sea life. And in the open ocean, when desalination plants are built, say, on the coast of California, that salty brine, that intense waste brine is broadly dispersed because of the currents and just the open space. But this is different because you're talking about dispersing that same concentrated brine into a really narrow gulf where it doesn't have the same capacity to be sort of widely dispersed quickly. So the concern that she has, and I heard from others, is that though desalination plants

like this can work and don't have to be a significant hazard on the open ocean, in this context, in this kind of a narrow gulf, it could be a real problem for the fish and wildlife that live there. and just want more water for more things that are not essential. By walking by downtown, you know, it looks like California. Swimming pools and amazing gardens. This is not right. We are living in the desert, and you have to be so responsible on being a desert abitant that that changed you forever. And her larger point is,

rather than trying to find new sources of water that could potentially hurt the environment, why not focus instead on conserving water and living more within the confines of a desert? Right. Now, despite the really serious environmental concerns, at the end of my time in Puerto Penasco, it seemed to me like this idea wasn't obviously a non-starter. It would be a lot to get everyone to say yes, who has to say yes. But I left with the idea that it could happen. Okay, so that would be the situation around the source of new water for Arizona. And of course, even if Mexico decides they're down for this deal, you know,

you still have to bring the water there to Arizona, as we're discussing. So how's that going to go? Here's one of the biggest problems. You've got to run a 200-mile pipeline through some of the most ecologically important and unique landscape in the area and then the towns nearby. A consultant for IDE told state officials that the pipeline would require a 175-foot wide corridor and the transmission line to power the project would also require a 150-foot right-of-way corridor. So we're talking about a significant amount of land that this pipeline would take up. So I wanted to understand what the impact would be. So I drove the path it would take. And the first place you come to once you cross the border into Arizona is the Oregon Pipe Cactus National Monument, which is a UNESCO site. And it's

federal land preserved for its natural significance. And people don't understand when they say, oh, it's just a desert. It's just a desert. Well, it's a very lush desert. Yeah, yes. I spent time there with two local environmentalists, Miche Lozano and Lorraine Eiler, and they took me around this really indescribably beautiful and rich landscape. What does it look like, Chris? Well, I'll say welcome to Kido Makito. Thank you. I had never even heard of it.

I'm so glad we're here. It's filled with these gigantic cactuses, the namesake organ pipe cactuses and saguaro cactuses. They tower over the landscape. They're almost like cartoons, vaguely humanoid, gigantic cactuses. And then there's the color, right? In addition to the cactuses, every plant seemed to be flowering at the same time. And it was unbelievable, the array of like bright reds and yellows and oranges. It was the exact opposite of what I thought

the desert would be. And there was also not an inch of open space. Everything was packed tightly together. So that could be one of the biggest challenges facing the project, what it would cost in terms of carving a path, the width of multiple freeways, through this landscape. And then, in addition to the impact on the land and the wildlife, there's also the impact on the Native Americans who have roots in this area, the Tohono O'odham people. My great-great-grandparents are buried there, and other relatives, which was at one time a huge community. And so, yes, it has a lot of significance to us. It's a place where we still have our ceremonies. We hold it in very high esteem. You know, we consider it a sacred place. Even after the national parks have taken it over, we still go there for religious purposes.

We still go there for religious purposes. And I should say, IDE said in their presentation to Arizona officials that they would go around the wildlife areas and minimize the impact. It's not clear to me from being there how that would work. It seems like the only way to run this pipeline to transport water to Phoenix is to cut a really significant hole through this national monument. Right. So it's an open question whether, I guess, you know, the federal government will allow what sounds like would be a significant consequence to this national monument. Yeah. And then as you follow the path of the proposed pipeline north beyond the national

monument, there are communities that would almost certainly be impacted. Anything you guys recommend I try and see while I'm in town? Somewhere to eat. Where would you eat if you're me? First recommendation would be to go early. Right. I went to one town called Ajo, which is a beautiful little community in the desert with small homes and a beautiful laid out garden in the middle of town. It's really a jewel of a place. The pipeline would either go through or skirt this town. It's unclear what the effect would be. But when you talk to community advocates about it, they're worried. I talked to Aaron Cooper. He's the head of the International Sonoran Desert Alliance, an advocacy group, and he was concerned. But the history, there's a history

of eviction in this community. There's a history of disenfranchisement. He was referring to Ajo's history as a mining town, a town that really exists for the purpose of mining copper and how people who live in Ajo have been pushed around at times and had their land confiscated to suit the whims of big companies. So if the company were to try to take this land for the right of way through a domain, through the county, there would be a history that it was playing into, I guess, like sort of a painful history. It's hard to say if those fears would come true. a history that it was playing into, I guess, like sort of a painful history. Yeah.

It's hard to say if those fears would come true. Maybe the pipeline could go around Ajo. But what does seem clear is the pipeline might not be welcomed with open arms in the places it would pass through. And that could represent another obstacle that Arizona has to think about when it's deciding what to do with this idea. Right. Okay. But let's assume for the sake of argument that the pipeline clears those hurdles and it gets built. For most of the people in Arizona who are concentrated around Phoenix, is there just pure upside? Well, we come now to the main problem for people in Arizona, which is cost.

Even if this desalination plant and pipeline can get built, the question then is, what does it mean for a state where an affordable cost of living is a big part of the draw? A lot of people who move to Arizona come from places like California or New York, and maybe they're fleeing a high cost of living. So all of a sudden, you've got a situation where the cost of water is going up a lot. Some estimates are the price of water could be as much as 10 times higher. So a big increase to the cost of living in Arizona. At this point, you're looking at a financial burden, which raises the question of if water is available, but for some people too expensive, What would that mean for growth? How would that affect the appeal of Arizona as this sort of affordable paradise in the

sun? Okay, so this is pretty hard, right? There are upsides, but also some pretty serious downsides to this thing. So how does this decision get made? Like, who decides for the state of Arizona whether they want to go for it? Well, it turns out that decision falls really on the shoulders of one person. So I found that guy and asked him what he thought. After the break, That Guy. So Chris, you said that there's really one guy at the heart of this decision about whether Arizona moves forward with this plan. Tell me how he's thinking about this. So this person is Chuck Podolak,

and he's the head of WIFA, the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority. That's the body that was given a billion dollars to help Arizona find and get new water. And he's not deciding for Mexico if this is a good deal for Mexico. He's not deciding for the U.S. government whether or not there should be a pipeline that's allowed to cross the border,

go through federal land. His job is to figure out whether this deal is good for Arizona and then decide, along with the board members at WIFA, if Arizona should spend money on this. Should we set up here? Is this the right spot? Yeah, it's great. And he invited me into his office to talk about how he's trying to decide if this project is the right way or one of the right ways to augment and find new water for the state. To simplify it, it does seem as though WIFA as an agency and you as the director have enormous responsibility here. You're authorized to spend a huge amount of money and the stakes are so high. Is it daunting? Is it a burden? Is it exciting? What's your state of mind building this process

of deciding how to augment Arizona's water supply? Yeah, I think it is a bit daunting. And we walked through some of the challenges and how he's looking at them. through some of the challenges and how he's looking at them. WIFA only works if people are willing to pay. His assessment seems to revolve around some of the challenges we talked about and primarily around the cost. To make a large project like that, you have to have political buy-in. That's not a decision that's only... And does he seem to be taking into consideration the environmental concerns, both in Mexico and along the route the pipeline would take?

He's not as much taking into account the environmental concerns, both in Mexico and Arizona. It's not really his job, but those potential environmental costs could play a role in Mexico and in D.C.''s calculation. It would be irresponsible for me to bring to the board a recommendation for a project that we didn't feel comfortable had the political stability that had the buy-in the long term. And that means benefits on both sides of the border. So for him to back the plan, he said he needs to feel like it can get approval from both countries. But he sounded more confident than you might think. What might you recommend as like the way to think about how crazy this is? Crazy so it will never happen or like

crazy but that's not really a barrier. It will seem crazy and ambitious until it's complete. And that's our history in Arizona. He really put this idea in the broader context of Arizona and made the point that if you look throughout Arizona's history, the state has been built on this constant progression of water projects that when they first get proposed, sound insane until they get built. We have an artificial river that runs uphill from Lake Havasu to Tucson, several hundred miles. That is a crazy, audacious idea, but it's done. And now we barely give it a second thought. And he mentioned the classic example, the sort of foundation of modern Arizona is something called the Central Arizona Project. It's an aqueduct that carries water from the Colorado River to Phoenix. And it's the source of Phoenix's amazing growth. His point was, this isn't the first time Arizona has faced a situation where they need more water

and they're looking at seemingly crazy ideas. But when you get down to it, they're not impossible ideas. They're very expensive. They require a lot of coordination, a lot of money, possibly environmental problems in some places. But the idea is if the alternative is Arizona doesn't grow, well, maybe it's worth putting in that money. There's not a body or a person who says we need to grow more or less. There's people wanting to come to Arizona. There's a lot of reasons why

people come to Arizona. It's an attractive place to do business. It's an attractive place to live. You get the feeling talking to Chuck that he sees Arizona as a place where obstacles, even big obstacles like water, can be overcome if you're just willing to think big enough. obstacles like water can be overcome if you're just willing to think big enough. And so it's like this sort of foundational optimism that allows the West to persevere in the face of a really hostile climate that's only becoming more hostile. And so to his mind, this latest idea for a desal pipeline project was just one more iteration of that ideal that keeps driving the American West. We don't have the luxury of looking at Arizona from the outside and saying, gee, that's really rough. Like we have to say, yes, it is. It's hard. But what are we going to do next? How are we going to deliver water? How are we going to continue to serve customers and citizens of the state?

These are tough issues. There's no clear way out. It's going to be expensive. It's going to be hard. But we can't throw our hands up and just say it's too hard. We have to figure out a way. He's basically saying we've always done this and we're going to do it again. We've bent the

environment to our will, all in service of growth. But of course, to keep growing, and growing into infinity, even if we technically can, raises the question of whether they should, right? Like, does he think about that question? Not, can we build it, but should we? You know, it's a great question, and I asked him that. What's your response to someone who says, Arizona, you shouldn't have built that much. Are they wrong? I would say we're not ignorant.

We're just up for the challenge. It's not that we don't know it's dry. It's not that we don't know we've got challenges. It's that we have no option but to figure it out. He's basically saying the state is doing this. We're not engaging on this question of top-down, deciding whether to stop growing or not. We're adapting. We're figuring it out.

And that's the same sentiment I heard from other officials in Arizona too. So what that means is the decision about whether and when Arizona stops growing is left to people voting with their feet, considering the cost of water and deciding whether to move to Arizona or not. And so far that demand isn't going away. And the thing that grabs me with this pipeline idea is that yes, on the one hand, it's a perfect continuation of that history of Arizona, that ethos of Arizona. On the other hand, in the face of climate change, it's maybe appropriate to at least ask, well, for how long can you keep on building your way and engineering your way out of reality? So in the short term, if this pipeline is built, it means that the water will flow, growth will continue despite the costs, environmental and otherwise. And if you can

afford it, you can come, right? So again, a huge water infrastructure project is moving the goal posts of what's possible and forestalling really an existential reckoning about whether more and more people should continue coming to live in a desert. That's right. And that's why Arizona is really at the forefront of dealing with this groundwater crisis. And they're trying to engineer their way out of it. And in a sense, that's the history of humanity inhabiting the earth and extreme areas in the earth and building their way around those limits and those constraints. That's sort of what we do. The question here is, can we do it forever? And will climate change impose some sort of new limit that means you've got to shift away from building your way out of those problems

and instead say, well, maybe there's some areas where it doesn't make sense to keep on building. So, bottom line, is this going to happen? You know, I'd take Chuck at his word. He said that probably at some point, some version of this plan will happen. Some version of getting desalinated water from Mexico is likely because that demand for now in Arizona isn't going away. And for the moment, there's no other formal options that have been presented. There's a saying in water circles that water flows uphill to money, and this would be one

more case of water flowing uphill to money. So it wouldn't surprise me if some version happens. But what does it look like? What does it cost? Who suffers? Will it work? And for how long? Chris, thank you. Thanks, Sabrina.

We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today. On Thursday, a fire in a building in Johannesburg, South Africa, killed at least 74 people, including at least 12 children, and injured dozens more. Officials said the fire occurred in a five-story building that was known to be a popular site for squatters in a city plagued by a severe lack of affordable housing. The fire was one of the deadliest in South Africa's history. And in an unusual move, Justice Clarence Thomas included a statement in his annual financial disclosure form defending luxury trips, flights on a private jet, and a real estate transaction with Texas billionaire Harlan Crowe. Thomas wrote that trips on non-commercial flights had been advised due to increased security risk following the leak of the draft opinion in the Dobbs case. He also argued that

his past filings that had omitted luxury trips with Crow were proper, writing that he had, quote, adhered to the then-existing judicial regulations. He did, however, acknowledge errors in past reports in which he failed to disclose personal bank accounts and his wife's life insurance, writing that the omission was inadvertent. Today's episode was produced by Michael Simon-Johnson and Will Reed, with help from Alex Stern, Ricky Nowetzki, and Carlos Prieto. It was edited by Paige Cowett, with help from Devin Taylor.

Fact-checked by Susan Lee. Contains original music by Chelsea Daniel, Marian Lozano, Dan Powell, and Diane Wong. And was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. Special thanks to Rowan Moore Garrity. That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you on Tuesday after the holiday.